Proton-M Rocket Carrying Russia's Most Advanced Satellite Crashes 160
schwit1 (797399) writes "When it rains it pours: A Russian Proton rocket crashed Friday nine minutes after launch. Considering the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over space, combined with the increasing competition for the launch market created by SpaceX's lower prices, another Proton failure now is something the Russians could do without. Moreover, the Russians were planning a lot of Proton launches in the next few months to catch up from last year's launch failure. Many of these scheduled launches were commercial and were going to earn them hard cash. This failure definitely hurts, and will certainly be used as justification by their government in increase its control over that country's aging aerospace industry."
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Interesting)
This is funny to me because even though the Russians beat you in most the early space milestones, the USA finally put a man on the Moon ... by making one giant government-backed project...
While the Russian approach was to set up various competing design bureaus.
Like I said, hilarious.
Different problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year's failure occurred immediately - it was clear there was a major issue with one of the first stage engines from ignition. This latest failure was in the third stage. That's actually worse, because it's showing problems across the board with different engines in different stages, which would be because of totally unrelated issues. Sounds like either fundamental engineering issues or major quality and control problems (probably the latter).
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, if you dig deeper a lot of regulation comes directly from the business themselves. Established businesses often like regulation because it improves the businesses perception (Hey, where government regulated what could go wrong??) while making it harder for start-ups to compete. A really good example of this is the founding of the USDA. Which came about after the European popularity of "The Jungle" which was basically writing down all the sea monster stores of the meat packing industry. I mean he tells us the meat packers really had us of their thumbs??? Then how did they manage to hold a knife and make exact cuts???
The US meat packing industry wanted a government seal to put on meat to reassure the European public that American meat was safe to eat.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Interesting)
This is easy to demonstrate. Just look at the health statistics from the rest of the 1st world where government more or less runs it and see how much better off we are then they are. Oh wait.....
Yes, please do look at the statistics of health and life expectancy for countries like Sweden, Norway and Canada.
It's way way above what it is in the US.
I have a surgical joint replacement that doctors here see on the X-rays. More than once they've told me they don't have the expertise to check it out, because US insurance companies would not allow such expensive parts to be implanted in US patients. The US way is to use cheaper parts not built to last, and rely on enough patients dying of other causes before needing replacements for this to pay off.
Also, the US healthcare system is very reactionary and slow to adopt new techniques based on the fear of lawsuits. Treatments can be available for dozens of years other places before you can get it in the US. Laser eye corrections is a good example. It took some 20 years before the US finally got them like other parts of the world.
It's about the dollar, not about the quality of life.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:4, Interesting)
Romney signed legislation that the people of Massachusetts (a very liberal state) wanted.
Don't try to distance him from this legislation. While the Massachusetts legislature did make a number of changes to Romney's original proposal before it was passed, it was Romney's proposal. It wasn't some ballot initiative or invention of the legislature.
Additionally, you'll find that there was widespread support for healthcare reform at the national level as well. Much like the Massachusetts healthcare reform, national healthcare reform was also something that the people wanted. And much like the Massachusetts healthcare reform, the national healthcare reform also had its share of opposition. You make it sound like the American public was united against the ACA, when it is plainly obvious to any honest person that there was in fact extensive support for an overhaul of our healthcare system. Obama had made healthcare reform a large part of the platform that got him elected. This wasn't something that was snuck in or pushed down anyone's throat. It may be hard for some people to believe it, but there's actually a whole range of different opinions on this issue. Just because it was pushed down the throat of an unwilling sideslash doesn't mean the rest of the country was opposed to reform.
That being said, I believe the ACA sucks ass and that single payer was the way to go. I suppose you'd count me alongside yourself as part of the "unwilling American public"?